Manafort: I’ll spill
Manafort to sing
Paul Manafort cut a deal to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation Friday — weeks after President Trump praised the former campaign chairman for refusing to flip.
The agreement averts a second trial for Manafort that would have begun Monday and seen him facing charges of acting as an agent of the pro-Russian Ukrainian government.
Instead, he pleaded guilty in federal court in DC Friday to charges of conspiracy against the US and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
At the hearing, prosecutor Andrew Weissman said Manafort had met with feds to outline what information he could offer.
That meeting, Weissman told the judge, “led us to today,” ABC News said.
Prosecutors didn’t divulge what info Manafort would share, but his role in the Trump campaign could make him a key witness in Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Manafort’s about-face came after Trump hailed him on Twitter as a “brave man” for his loyalty “under tremendous pressure” following his conviction on eight related bank- and taxfraud charges last month.
Reacting to Manafort’s pleas Friday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “This had absolutely noth- ing to do with the president or his victorious 2016 presidential campaign.”
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani echoed the denial in a similar statement that was quickly revised to remove the words, “Paul Manafort will tell the truth.”
Under his plea bargain, Manafort faces up to 10 years in prison. The deal doesn’t cover the sentence he faces for last month’s conviction but includes a provision for prosecutors to help him seek leniency.
As campaign chair, Manafort reportedly took part in the 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and a group of Russians.
Manafort agreed to forfeit $46 million in assets — including a Trump Tower apartment and properties in Soho, Chinatown, Brooklyn and the Hamptons — as well as three bank accounts and a life-insurance policy.
After Friday’s hearing, his lawyer Kevin Downing said Manafort “wanted to make sure his family remained safe and live a good life.”
In charging papers, prosecutors said Manafort tried to plant a story in The Post in 2012 painting a “senior Cabinet official” as anti-Semitic for backing ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
“I have someone pushing it on the NY Post. Bada bing bada boom,” he wrote to an associate, according to the papers.
It was unclear who that “someone” was. The story was never published.